


A Death Star-Size Hole In The Universe

by bicycles



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming of Age, M/M, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 21:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8072635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicycles/pseuds/bicycles
Summary: An exploration in self-induced anxiety. Billy and Teddy break up after their encounter with Loki. All Billy has to do is talk to get him back, but that's proving harder than expected. Not canon compliant at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for one of my best friends. Thank you for always dragging me back into the YA fandom. (I know this is out of order in terms of canon chronology.)

He elbowed one of the heavier boxes off his bed. The narrow twin bed sank in the middle under all the weight, a rickety contraption that had seen better days. So, _this_ was college. He shoved the box under the bed, followed by another, and another, until just one was left. It was the smallest, and it didn't have a lid. It was filled to the top with Captain America comics, posters, and photos from high school. _Memories_. His mom had insisted that he bring at least one thing that reminded him of home, and when he'd refused, she'd done it for him. She'd left the top photo on purpose, a reminder. Of all of them, all the Young Avengers, just outside the waffle house. Before the _apocalypse_ , the first but not the last. His mom was like that, leaving little reminders of life's repetitive moments, like he needed more than one life-shattering crisis to make it worth it. 

Kate had run off with Clint because she'd had enough of those life-shattering experiences. He'd wanted to argue that Clint _was_ a life-shattering experience in itself, but he hadn't said anything. He'd just watched her drive away in that brilliant red convertible. 

And Teddy? 

He picked up the photo, ignoring how his eyes fell to the sandy haired boy first. Ignoring, too, how he immediately attached it to the corkboard above his bed. _This wasn't supposed to be a big thing. A hiatus. A pause._ The door opened, banging against the closet door. The room was tiny, so that his desk touched his bed, and his bed touched just where the door opened into the closet. It was even tinier with his roommate there, elbowing into the already claustrophobic space with a big box of clothes and an antique lamp.

The lamp nearly toppled to the floor as the boy set the box on his bed. 

"You must be Kaplan."

"It's just, Billy's fine."

"Right, Kaplan. I'm Reggie." The dark skinned boy offered him a smile. "But my friends call me Brown."

In that moment, he learned two very important things about his roommate: the boy was at least a foot taller than him, and he liked to refer to people only by their last names. It reminded Billy of his sixth grade Reading teacher, who'd spent the entire year calling him Capstones. Billy swallowed, aware that this now six foot tall football-like player was staring him down.

"Okay, awesome, Brown. Did you need any help? My parents just left to take my brothers out for Chinese."

"Nah, my mom's downstairs dictating orders to my sisters. They'll be up soon enough. You have brothers?" 

"Two. Two and a half, actually. But just the two were here."

"And a half?"

He noticed the antique lamp was now safely situated on the half-dresser, half-sink space just between their two closets. He nodded. "It's complicated." He turned back to his comics. More complicated than comic book continuity, if he were being honest with himself, and most of that was _complicated_. But he couldn't say that his mom was a world-bending witch. He couldn't say that his reincarnated twin was a speedster, like his uncle. There wasn't anything left to say, anyway, because Reggie had already left. Probably to dictate orders to his sisters.

\---

College was different without Teddy. The world was always different without him. As though the universe had decreed that he and Teddy should be together, always and forever, to infinity and beyond. Okay, maybe not _that_ far, but it was _different_. If he'd known it was going to be this different, he'd have vetoed the whole decision. But that was the problem, wasn't it? That was where all of this had gone wrong, in his having the power to veto the whole thing with just a thought. Actually, if he were being honest, everything had started to go wrong when Loki had appeared.

This was all Loki's fault. (Except when it wasn't.)

As it turned out, Reggie wasn't a half-bad roommate. He was from Queens, and he'd decided on Poughkeepsie because they'd offered him a soccer scholarship. Reggie'd told him all this the first night, the only night they'd spent in the dining hall together. After that, it was usually Reggie and the soccer team, or Reggie, the soccer team, and girls. Having grown up the punching bag of every soccer, football, and baseball player within a ten minute walk of his upper west side high school, Billy kept to himself. He didn't need to be best friends with his roommate's friends. His domain was smaller: the room, the library, and Hamilton Hall. He was supposed to be an _art_ major, but most of his classes this year were basic freshmen requirements: psych, college algebra, composition, American history. Most of those took place in Hamilton, or just across the way in Adams. 

The short commute left him with more time to think than he'd like. He used that time to hide in the library, or when it was particularly nice, just outside the campus cafe, pretending to read _Civil War_ on his phone (the artists never got the details right). That was where he was now.

"You like Captain America?" 

He looked up from the fight scene (the one between Cap and Tony, definitely all wrong) to see a taller boy blocking the sun. "Um - I'm more of a Spider-Man fan." Being friends with the actual Avengers made it easier to lie. To pretend that he was _normal_. "You know, the webs…" 

This kid kind of looked like Peter Parker. If he was just a little bit shorter, scrawnier, and smiled less. All he seemed to do was smile, which made Billy pause, and then slowly return the smile. "You?"

"I dunno. Cap's got the uh… the muscles." Another smile, small, and secretive.

"Mmmm. Maybe. I've seen them. I mean, um… In the books." 

"Yea...I saw them in New York once. I swear, it was really them. Um -- I'm Adam." The kid held out a hand, awkward, uncertain. 

He took it, awkward, uncertain. "Billy." 

"So, you really think Spider-Man's better than Captain America?"

"No way. It was a test. You really saw them?" He tried to sound excited, a regular fanboy. Not the kid who'd been to Avenger's Tower more than once, who'd almost been an Avenger. Teddy had ended that, too.

"Yea."

"You _have_ to tell me about it."

\--

The room was half-dark, the only light that odd antique lamp that Reggie had brought in the first day. It'd had been his dead grandma's, he'd explained one morning, still half-drunk, brushing out his teeth over the shared sink. It was supposed to bring good luck, or some shit. Billy liked it. It was ugly and only half did its job. The perfect study lamp.

He'd been studying for his psych test (something, something, Skinner, something) when his laptop started to ring. He hit answer and leaned forward to see the screen better.

"Billy?"

"Kate! "Hey, how's um, Nevada?"

" _Finally_. I've been trying to call you all day, _timezones_. And it's California, you idiot. How's New York?"

"Same as always."

"And Teddy?"

Billy chewed his lip, aware even from the distance of 3000 miles that Kate knew he was waffling. "I dunno." 

"You're saying you left your boyfriend to the auspicious hospitality of lower Manhattan, and you haven't even checked in on him?"

"Technically," said Billy, and here his breath caught, "technically, we're on hiatus. Even if we were like, living together, up until two weeks ago, and um, technically, he thought I wished him into existence so he could fall in love with me."

"You're an idiot, Kaplan."

The use of his last name made him think of his roommate, who was inevitably out somewhere getting blackout drunk. And why wasn't he out there, too? He was a freshman, for fuck's sake, and this was a state school. There had to be gay boys out there. Boys like Adam who had semi-secret smiles and a thing for Captain America.

"Yea, and what else is new...SO, do you want me to wish you back here?"

"No, I uh -- things are good."

"Yea?"

"Yea, Clint's off doing who knows what, but I met this nice old couple. We're going surfing in the morning."

"Really?"

"Yup, they're letting me live in their RV and babysit their cat."

"Um - wow, Kate. You've just hit official cat lady status."

"Billy, you should call Teddy. I'm serious." 

"Right."

"Billy."

"Okay, Kate, okay. It's just --"

"No. It's like heaven and earth shattered for you two to be together, and now you're being stupid, over a supervillain, who I'll have you know is more into your twin brother than you." 

"Uh, thanks, Kate."

When they hung up, Billy almost checked his phone. Almost checked his Hangouts app for no new messages. Instead, he picked up his psych book, trying to learn something, something, Skinner, and something. _This wasn't going to be a thing_.

\---

The thing is that it kind of already was a thing. It had happened like this. Loki, hereafter to be called He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, except not like _that_ because _Harry Potter_ , had messed with his boyfriend's head. That was it. The end. All Billy had to do was prove that it was just Loki messing with Teddy's head, except, how? And why was it always on him to prove that he wasn't using his magic for nefarious purposes?

_And what if he was using his magic for nefarious purposes and didn't know it yet?_

So, Teddy had said, "I think we should take a break." It had been close to midnight. They'd been standing out on Billy's parents' fire escape, looking at the stars, except there were no stars in Manhattan. It was dark and loud. No stars for miles. And Teddy had said it. " _I think we should take a break._ "

The words were the Death Star hitting Alderaan. The bright eye of Sauron. The apocalypse, _part deux_. He felt like the entirety of the universe had collapsed in a single sentence, and all he'd said was, "okay." Okay, and?

"I'm going to NYU this semester, and I think --" Teddy had paused, just paused a moment to artfully brush his hair from his eyes. "You should do what your mom wants. Don't stay in the city because of me. Go to - go to Poughkeepsie. Billy, you've always wanted to do this."

It was true, sort of. He had always wanted to follow in his mom's footsteps, and Poughkeepsie did have a good arts program, but well, Teddy was his life. And right now, that life seemed to be slipping right out from under him. They were supposed to go to Poughkeepsie together, so that they could be Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Han and Leia. Samwise and Frodo. The universal archetype of true love.

No, that wasn't right.

"I don't want this to be a thing."

Which was stupid, really. The stupidest line in the history of stupid lines. He'd almost turned to say so, but then he heard the creak of metal, and Teddy was gone, and the next morning all he could think about was what it must feel like to be inside a black hole.

And that this must be it.

This was definitely already a thing.

So, when Adam had invited him to a party at one of the senior art houses, Billy had said what he thought he was supposed to say. _Yes_. Yes, because he was bored, and tired of sitting up all night in his dorm, thinking that maybe this would be the night that Teddy would call.

Nevermind that he could just as easily have called Teddy.

Nevermind that he was the one who was supposed to apologize and make amends and illustrate with a 5-paragraph essay why his magic wasn't being used for nefarious purposes (except when it was, except when it wasn't his fault).

When his friend Adam had invited him to a party, Billy had said yes, and then he'd panicked for a whole five seconds. Like, he didn't know what a party entailed, and how the hell he'd ever been invited to one. After that ten seconds, he'd called Kate.

"Hey, how's surfing with Lorraine?"

"Letty," said Kate, who had on one of those big brimmed hats that protected her eyes from the sun. She looked like she was at the beach. "And awesome. How's New York?"

"The same. So, look, I got invited to a college party." He'd expected her to scream, to be excited, to show some emotion other than stare at him. He _thought_ she was staring. "And uh -- I need your help? Help me, Kate, you're my only hope…"

"Don't. Don't pull that Star Wars BS on me. What were you thinking?"

"That I uh - desperately need to make friends so I can avoid thinking about this empty space where my heart should be."

"Billy Kaplan, I told you to call him."

"And?"

"And apologize for all that shit Loki said. And he's stupid. And you're stupid. And good God, you need a haircut. You can't go to a college party looking like your mom chopped your hair in the kitchen sink."

"I can't get a haircut within the next two hours, Kate." 

"At least tell me you have some nicer jeans. And don't drink too much. And, _Billy_ \-- how many Cap shirts do you own?"

And so he let his best friend dress him over video call, which mostly ended in him wearing one of his nicer Captain America t-shirts, skinny jeans, and black Chuck Taylors. And when they hung up, she didn't say anything else about Teddy, and he didn't have to ask.

Teddy didn't want this to be a thing. It wasn't going to be a thing.

\--

Unfortunately, best laid plans of mice and men, and well… Fast-forward to 3 a.m. Senior art house. Billy in his best Captain America shirt, bent over one of those unfashionable trashcans, puking. He slid down to the curb, pulling out his phone, blinking. It was dark, and it was hard to see more than five feet in front of him. Maybe that was just what nighttime was like in the country. Maybe that was what nighttime was like in the country with a tad too much tequila and the Earth off its axis.

"You okay?"

Cue the entrance of tall, pale, and sandy brown. Right, _Adam_. "Um - yea, sorry about all this, I'm not usually this much of a lightweight." Another lie to add to a long list of lies that represented their friendship.

He _was_ drunk. Because if he hadn't been drunk, he wouldn't have been sitting outside a party house, looking all the world as though he were drunk. And he wouldn't be there with Adam, who definitely looked like the sort of boy that he wanted to make out with. And maybe (after brushing his teeth and righting the world on its axis), they wouldn't be making out on his dorm bed. The one that was rickety, and creaked under their weight, and had those hideous orange Ikea sheets. 

Adam had the best hands. They knew all the right places to fit, just above his waist, pressing him back, back into the hideous orange sheets. And, _shit_ , thought Billy as Adam kissed him, _had he wished another one into existence?_

But those were real hands. Real hands moving up his shirt, until skin pressed against skin, and suddenly, Billy felt dizzy all over again, dizzy and sick. He pulled back. "Sorry, I um --"

He thought Adam was looking at him, but all he could see was unfocused shady brown and blue, blurring together until he couldn't really see anything.

He woke up hours later, half-naked and alone. He'd been asleep on the bathroom floor.

When Reggie came in the next day, he didn't say anything. But he knew his roommate knew. 

\---

He was never drinking again, except that he was, and somehow one time had turned into multiple times. And now there was an Adam (Billy was fairly certain that notch didn't count), and a LeRoy (who was half-Mexican), and a Lorraine (that had been a definite mistake, no amount of alcohol made Billy straight), and an Elijah. It was about midway through October, midterms were just around the corner, and Billy was tired. Tired of drinking, and fucking, and halfway to fucking thinking about his ex-boyfriend, so that fucking turned into jerking off in the bathroom, _thinking about his ex-boyfriend_. Which led him to puking up tequila, or vodka, or rum into the toilet (he definitely preferred tequila for all of his noncommittal sexual encounters).

Fuck, when had this become such a mess?

All he had to do was call.

Or, text.

Or, apologize.

 

"Teddy, I'm sorry I didn't think --"

"Teddy, Loki was wrong about me --"

"Teddy, it's like that time we saw Episode III together, and Anakin Skywalker slaughtered --" 

All of these were the half-started voicemails of a boy deranged, he thought. Of someone who didn't understand the definition of space. Of someone who spent the majority of his waking hours drunk, or high on caffeine, or cramped into a tiny corner of the library, studying algebra and composition and all the subjects that one didn't even need to do art.

He swallowed his pride and tried again. It was the night before his college algebra midterm. A big fucking deal if he wanted to keep his scholarship. A big fucking deal, except Teddy had always been better at math, and well, that was just fucked up.

He'd almost wished himself to Teddy, except the commuter train was probably more reliable, and well, he didn't think he could show up at Teddy's doorstep. For one, he'd never been there. For two, he hadn't done magic that big since Loki had fucked with his head. Fuck, get it together. He hit call.

It rang.

And it rang.

And then, "hey."

There it was. That feeling that washed over him that other people called zen. All Billy could do was breathe. "Hey, I'm sorry, I thought… I --"

"Hey, hey, stop." He stopped. He waited. Teddy said, "I missed you."

Then, why didn't you call?

But that was wrong. It had been on him to put this right, to not let the best thing that had ever happened to him walk the fuck out.

"I have a midterm tomorrow, and I can't understand how to find 'x'. And why does it have to be 'x'? Why can't it be..." He murmured something in Sindarin, and Teddy laughed.

"Because, Billy, it's symbolic. The 'x' represents..."

And just like that, they were talking again.

\---

"I thought you knew I couldn't wish people into existence."

"Um, you kind of wished my mom back into existence."

"Yeah, like an evil version of her…"

He had taken the train down to the lower East Side. They were sitting at one of those fancy tables, the ones that lined Washington Square as though it were a college campus (it wasn't, this was the city, he had missed this). Their hands lingered just below the table, fingers barely touching. He liked when they were just barely touching the most. It was as though this sacred space had opened up between them, and nothing could break it.

"And how long did it take for us to figure that out? How long did it take to figure us out?"

"Okay, but I didn't wish _you_ into existence. You're -- Perfect."

"I'm not."

"Exactly."

Teddy linked their hands together, laughing. He liked it most when Teddy laughed, as though they were free of all that darkness. He leaned forward, and then -- they were kissing. Kissing. He loved it when they kissed, so effortlessly, as though nothing had stood between them for so long. As though he hadn't stood between them.

Teddy tasted nothing like an Adam, or Lorraine, or day old tequila mixed with too much salt. Teddy tasted like, the sea just before sunset and his mother's best matzo soup, all of that together in a way that just made sense. 

"You need to come to my room."

"Not tonight…"

"Billy, we used to live together."

"I've got to get back. I have an essay due tomorrow. The train…"

Their hands lingered, together just a moment, and then Teddy let go. "I understand. Got to keep your scholarship."

"Yea." What he didn't say was how much he worried that giving into this might finally break him. What he didn't say was that it was Saturday, and the essay could wait. What he didn't say was, what if he was wrong?

_And what if this was just self-made madness?_

\---

"Clint and I aren't coming home for Thanksgiving."

"It's _Thanksgiving_. It's like, the absolute best holiday."

"You only say that because you're Jewish and miss out on like, half the awesome things about Christmas."

He was sitting in his dorm, idly paging through the section on something, something, Freud, something. He _hated_ Freud. Freud reminded him of his mom, and well, that was either weird, or not weird, or both. "Wrong. And wrong. And wrong. And _Thanksgiving_ , Kate. Turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie."

"Letty already promised me pie. And Tofurkey, and lima beans…"

"Kate, you're ruining the sacred aspect of Thanksgiving by talking about _tofu_. And vegetables. And… _Lima beans_ are _not_ green bean casserole."

He could tell Kate was at the beach because she had that big floppy hat again and a grin wider than the Pacific Ocean. "Okay, Chef Ramsey. Is Teddy coming home?"

"Um -- I dunno." Leave it to Kate to bring up what he didn't want to. It was a tradition. But where did traditions stand with hiatuses, and evil ex-supervillains, and life?

"We'll be home for Christmas, I promise."

"Okay."

"You have to invite him."

"He lives there. He shouldn't need an invitation."

"You're being stupid again."

 

And he was. He was always being stupid when it came to Teddy and the different spaces that they'd come to occupy after the thing that wasn't a thing. After graduation. That's probably what normal people saw in the place where Billy saw _epic events leading to the brainwashing of my boyfriend and ultimately, my spiral into a self-denying existence in which I think I've created everything, and therefore, question my own reality._ Maybe he shouldn't have taken psychology his first semester.

"So, like, my mom's making her famous mashed potatoes, and I think you should be there, because if you're not…"

That was about the point where Teddy's lips met his, and Teddy was kissing him, and all he could do was kiss him back.

"I'm not missing Thanksgiving." 

"Oh. Okay. Um -- can we do that again?"

And Teddy laughed. He thought he could listen to Teddy left into infinity and beyond (not that again). Or, well, at least until Teddy kissed him again. 

_And how had he ever thought that he could wish such a perfect laugh into existence? Especially when his own was so sparing and awkward._

\--

When Billy came back from college (having turned in his psych paper on something, something, psychoanalysis and looking worse for the wear), Teddy was already back. He and Tommy had taken over the spare room, looking for all the world as though this was their home. It was, sort of. All of them had lived together for so long that it was hard to remember what the Kaplan house had been like before the Kree-Skrull invasion, before _everything_.

"Hey." He had paused in the door, hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt.

"Hey."

Tommy looked up from pummeling with superior Yoshi acrobatics. "Hey, Billy. The college twin. Your boyfriend's out of practice."

"Hey, Tommy. How's life?" By which he meant, how's life on the run?

His other half grinned. "As fast as ever." 

And then, his and Teddy's eyes met, Teddy's eyebrows raised slightly. 

He felt himself blush, felt it as he turned away until he was lost in the confines of his own room, hands curling into the pockets of his black hoody. The one his mom had got him last year for his birthday. 

"So, like, I'm thinking this was cute in high school…" Teddy was outside the door, pushing the door open. "You're cute, always. But this, fragile, cute, nervous…" Teddy had his hands on his chest. "What's wrong?"

"I --"

"No, what's wrong?" They were so close that Teddy's voice was a whisper. They were so close that his back was pressed up against the door. That all he had to do was breathe. Breathe, and Teddy was there. Teddy was real.

"I can't stop thinking you're a figment of my imagination."

"Billy." 

"Like, I brought you here, somehow. I dunno. I dunno. My mom wished all of mutantkind into existence. My granddad's a -- he's uh…"

"Billy." Teddy's hands pressed into his chest. Teddy was so close that his breath was on his neck.

He swallowed. "He's a mass murderer. And I'm just his reincarnated spawn, who can… I don't know what. And the only person who does hates us, and wants me to think I created you out of my head. And I -- I think I'm in love with you. And I'm so, so stupid." He sobbed, literally choking on the word. He pressed his face into Teddy's shoulder. "I'm so, so stupid. I don't know why I didn't call earlier."

For a long time, neither of them moved. For a long time, the universe had narrowed to just him and Teddy, and the smell of his mom's fabric softener. 

\--

"You didn't."

"What?"

"You didn't _create_ me."

"But --"

Thanksgiving break was over. They'd been having the same conversation for a week now, a week that carried them straight into finals. In freshmen speak, that was _hell_. He couldn't remember the last time that he'd slept. He missed sleep. He missed sleep, the city, and his boyfriend, possibly in that order. 

"Loki's wrong. And I love you. And Loki's wrong."

"Say that again." His phone was cradled between his shoulder and his ear while he typed up the primary causes of the American Revolution. _Hell week_. Lexington and Concord had nothing to do with art.

"Loki's wrong."

"No, the uh --" He put his hand to his phone, barely breathing.

"God, Billy, I love you, but that doesn't mean you're not an idiot. Come over."

"In the morning." He'd have sworn that his heart had stopped beating in his chest.

"No, Billy -"

"I can't." And there it was. The rapid pace of the thump, thumpity, thump. "Teddy, I can't --"

"You just have to _want_ to."

But what did it mean to want? He could want lots of things. Like, tidying his room. And creating self-heating gloves. But he hadn't wanted something like this, not in months. What if it didn't work like that anymore? He closed his eyes. _IjustwanttoseeTeddy. IwanttoseeTeddy._

"I can't --"

"I believe in you."

_IjustwantTeddy._

\--

"I'm here. I'm here. I'm here."

He felt arms pulling him closer, closer until it was just him and Teddy. It must have been cold outside because the windows were too fogged to see the city down below. The city that had spread around him all his life. He breathed. "You're here."

When Teddy's mouth met his, it was open and soft. They kissed like no one was watching, because this was New York, and no one was. 

\--

"Hey, I, um, I thought you'd like this." He pushed a comic across the table. "I know, about that night, I'm ---" He had his hands in the pockets of his jacket, awkward, uncertain. He'd taken the jacket from Teddy's. It was good as his now.

Adam had been sitting in their usual spot, where they'd spent the beginning of the semester mocking hipster and discussing comics. It was awkward and uncertain to be back here, but it was right, too. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I thought I'd done something wrong." For all his cool, Adam had as much self-confidence as he did (none). "How'd you pull this off?" It was a signed copy of the latest Avengers run.

"I got uh -- I'm uh --" _I'm a superhero._ "My mom's friends with the Avengers. It's complicated."

"Yea? So…" Adam looked hopeful. "Are you going to the end of year party?"

Billy buried his hands further into his jacket, shaking his head. "My boyfriend's taking me to the tree lighting at Rockefeller." 

"Should be crowded."

"I know. So… Do you think Hawkeye will ever come back from California?"

"Which one?"

Billy grinned, leaning against the table. "Either, one, really. But she's a better shot." 

_~Fin_  
  
---


End file.
